h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dad's joke for the reason he joined up without waiting to be called up was $1.10 a day and a new pair of boots. Times were hard on the Prairies of Canada. Knowing Dad, the real reason was to stop a maniac who wanted to rule the world.

After an extended time spent terrorizing England, trying to drink his way across London (!), running an Army motorcycle into a brick wall during a blackout, visiting relatives in England and Scotland - where he had to try and behave, Dad landed in France on D-Day + 4. Green as grass, he went across a wheat field to Capriquet Airport. The man walking beside him was killed. There he encountered the 12th SS Hitler Youth, and took a Norwegian knife from an officer. We still have it. By D-Day + 7 he was in Caen.

From there it was off to Naijmegen. In the movie A Bridge Too Far, Dad showed me which field gun was his. He was billeted in a farm yard near Bergen Op Zoom, and he enjoyed his time there, loving the family who owned the farm, especially the children, who got all his chocolate. In September - October, 1944 he was in Antwerp. He took part in the battle at the entrance to Walrechen Island, where the Canadians broke the dykes to cut off the Germans.

Through reading, our son thinks he was at Dachau concentration camp, just after it was liberated. Dad's only comment was that you couldn't tell him the Holocaust didn't happen, and he handed his grandson a book.

His outfit visited a Hitler Youth and SS training school, Bad Tolz, we think. There was a huge bronze swastika on a pole in the yard. Someone got the bright idea they should take it down, and ship it to Ottawa. When it came down, it half-burried itself in the ground. There it stayed.

Hamberg was as far as he got.

When the war ended Dad was on leave in Aberdeen, the first Canadian to stay at the new Canada House. He checked in, cleaned up, and thought he'd go to the pub for a drink before he went to visit my Mom's Aunties. Dad put his coins on the bar and asked for his pint. An old Scot came over and told him "Put yer money in yer pooch, Canada. We're buying. The war's over." He woke up back in his bed, uniform intact, and all his money in his wallet.

Dad told us a lot. What he wouldn't talk about, he'd lend you a book to read about. We're bit-by-bit piecing his adventure together. This is just a nut-shell version of the story of Gunner Kenneth George (Kelly) Mosson, 4 Regiment 3 Battery 2 Division RCA - "The Fighting 43rd" CEF.

An after-word.

When the war was over and Dad was home, he and Mom went to a movie in Brandon one night. When they came out of the theatre, there was a raging Prairie thunderstorm going on. Any of you who have experienced one of these know its loud, brilliantly lit, and violent. Dad's mind went right back to Europe. He shouted to "take cover, boys" and dove under a car at the curb.